The Muse?

Sometimes the writing process is a complete mystery. I’m about a third of the way through the first draft of Empire’s Hostage, the sequel to Empire’s Daughter (which will be released in paperback soon, but that’s another post for another day). Lena, the protagonist, is hostage to a truce between the Empire and the lands to the north, and is feeling confused, frustrated, constrained…and also suffering a little bit of what we would call today culture shock. Looking to find a way to both condense a bit of relevant ‘history’ into something not boring to the reader, and to further delineate the differences between the Empire and Linrathe, the land north of the Wall, my brain suddenly produced – in about thirty easy minutes – a song which effectively did both. Sung by the party with which she is travelling, it fit perfectly into the chapter. But where did that come from?